Dragon Ball FighterZ: 5 Things We’d Like To See

We want a decent damn story in Dragon Ball FighterZ, amongst other things. How about you?

We’re smack bang in the midst of E3 season, with reveals and gameplay trailers flying around like paper balls in a classroom or dollar bills when your mum works the pole. One such trailer that caught the attention of many debuted during Xbox’s Media Conference on Sunday night. Despite being leaked the day before, Dragon Ball FighterZ managed to surprise many with its eye catching art style and killer combos.

Of course, those in the know expected nothing less. This is the latest fighting game from Arc System Works, who have practically pioneered anime style fighting games over the past decade. Games like Blazblue, Persona 4: Arena and Guilty Gear Xrd are perfect combinations of vibrant visuals, gratifying gameplay and some satisfying special moves.

But with more eyeballs than ever focused on Arc System Works due to the magnitude of the Dragonball license, the expectation is there for the team to deliver in a big way. Like, bigger than the amount of salt developed by those who still insist that Goku can defeat Superman. So what can Arc System do to ensure that Dragonball FighterZ lives up to the hype? We’ve gathered the 7 Dragon Balls and came up with a few wishes that we think would make Dragonball FighterZ 2018’s premier fighter.

What’s The Story, Dragon Ball Glory?

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I’ve mentioned this before in other articles but it bears repeating: fighting games need story modes. People no longer care for fighting games that offer an Arcade Mode then charge full price. We want a serious return on our investment, and story modes help with that. Of course, the Dragon Ball Z storylines have been hammered to death in gaming already. Even Xenoverse’s premise is basically a retelling of the story with a bit of Timecop thrown in for good measure. Still, any story is better than no story, whether that be another rendition of familiar territory or something new entirely.

Transformations Still Only Count As One

The relative simplicity of the arena fighter genre, one that Dragon Ball has been a proud member of for many years now, allows for robust rosters unlike most other fighters. No need to programme complex movesets for everyone when each character does the same basic actions. That isn’t a luxury afforded by the smaller rosters of 2D fighter, which relies on character nuances to accentuate differences between the characters. But if there’s three different versions of Vegeta, five of Goku and god knows what other kind of insanity, space on the roster is going to be at a premium.

In an ideal world, Goku’s Super Saiyan transformations should be part of his abilities, allowing him to get stronger as the fight progresses, and early footage seems to suggest that is the case. They should not appear on the roster at the cost of other characters. We need characters like Piccolo, Beerus, Krillin, Captain Ginyu and even shit tier characters like Tien. If Hercule isn’t in this game then I swear to fucking god I’ll blow up Namek myself.

The Classic Arc System Mod Cons

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GuiltyGear Xrd Revelator and now Rev 2 have been able to walk that line between casual and hardcore without upsetting either side. The die hard fans have rewarding, execution heavy combos to master, whilst the casual gamers can throw on the Stylish mode and act like they know what the hell they’re doing. The tutorial mode also offers players wanting to learn the ins and outs of the game an extensive and thorough seminar on how to not be a scrub. Basically, Dragon Ball FighterZ should just do the same thing. It’s already borrowed the same art style that made Guilty Gear famous, why not throw in a couple more things while they’re at it?

Go Tag or Go Solo, Your Choice

One of the more intriguing/surprising facts about Dragon Ball FighterZ is that it’ll be a 3v3 tag fighter in the same vein as Marvel vs Capcom 2 and 3. In the E3 trailer, we can see characters like Majin Buu and Perfect Cell being called in as assists for different characters. This is a bold new direction for Arc System Works, as they predominantly produce 1v1 fighters, but hopefully it’s not one they lean on too heavily. Tag mechanics can be a huge barrier for the new player, and it creates an almost impossible divide between the strong players and their victims. Our suggestion is one similar to Skullgirls or the Capcom vs SNK Ratio system, where players can assign strength to different members of their team. They could even go solo with one super powered character against 3 weaker characters. Sure, ranked matches could stick to a hard and fast rule of 3v3, but we don’t see the harm in letting players experiment with team composition in other modes.

Metamorese Art of Fusion

Earlier on, we mentioned how character transformations shouldn’t take up half the roster, but we didn’t mention fusion related characters like Gotenks and Vegito. “What about those guys?” all two of you reading this probably screamed impotently into your Alienware desktop. Well, we hear you ask, we might have an interesting answer: make them special moves for certain tag team combinations.

Say you’re playing as Goku and Vegeta and you’re struggling to defeat a stronger team, but you possess the maximum level of super meter. Why not spend that to fuse your two fighters into the exponentially more powerful Gogeta? It could make for an interesting comeback mechanic akin to the X Factor system from Marvel vs Capcom 3, only more hype. The fact that only certain teams could make use of this feature could make certain combinations more viable than others, but it’d be a unique, rewarding and most importantly fun way to both honour the lore of Dragon Ball whilst integrating it into the gameplay mechanics.

In any event, we can be assured in the knowledge that the Dragon Ball license is in safe hands over at Arc System Works. If you could ask Shenron to grant your wish for Dragon Ball FighterZ, what would it be? Sound off in the comments below, the most interesting answer will win an official Cultured Vultures “No Prize”!